ANTHROPOLOGY: A. V. KIDDER 
119 
The beds thus formed were built up very slowly, and when completed 
and solidified were so compact and fine grained as to be nearly or quite 
impermeable to liquids from the outside. If infiltrated by any material 
from without before the water originally included was drained and dried 
away, it is difficult to see how this could be done by liquids lighter than 
water, coming into it in the form of a uniform seepage from below. 
Exactly contemporaneous with the gradually progressive disappearance 
of the water and the chemical changes accompanying this, the sediments 
were compacted, solidified and lithified to their present texture and 
condition, and it seems highly probable that penetration by liquids 
from any outside source during the induration would be increasingly 
difficult. If these views are correct, the gaseous and liquid compounds 
obtained by distillation from the shale are not of external origin, but 
result from the decomposition of the carbonaceous material laid down 
during the formation of the rock. The absence of demonstrable liquid 
hydrocarbons in the shale itself would tend to strengthen this view, 
although not an insurmountable objection. 
(Published by permission of the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey) 
ARCHEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS AT PECOS, NEW MEXICO 
By A. V. Kidder 
DEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY. PHILLIPS ANDOVER ACADEMY 
Received by the Academy, February 1, 1916 
During the past summer the Department of Archaeology of Phillips 
Andover Academy began the excavation of the ruined Indian Pueblo of 
Pecos in San Miguel County, New Mexico. It was the wish of the 
Department to undertake the thorough exploration of a site large enough 
and of sufficient scientific importance to justify work upon it for several 
years. 
Pecos lies in the well-watered and fertile upper Pecos valley at an 
elevation of about 7000 feet. The buildings are located on the summit 
of a flat-topped ridge of sandstone sHghtly elevated above the sur- 
rounding plain, and consist of two house-clusters containing together, 
as nearly as can be made out in their present state of ruin, about 1100 
ground floor rooms. A few hundred feet to the south stand the roofless 
walls of the large Spanish mission church. 
The place was discovered by Coronado in 1540. At that time it was 
the most populous of the Pueblo villages, being able to muster 500 fight- 
ing men. The chroniclers of the expedition describe the town as a 
quadrangular structure, four stories in height, on the balconies of which 
